5 If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you to some extent—not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 Another reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 Anyone you forgive, I also forgive. And what I have forgiven—if there was anything to forgive—I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. -2 Corinthians 2:5-11
The end goal of rebuke is loving restoration. The Christians at Corinth were ignoring one of their members sexual sin—he was sleeping with his step-mom. Yes, it’s pretty messed up. So Paul urged the church to do something about it. Ignoring someone’s sin is not loving them. It’s the opposite, it’s because you value comfort above that person’s spiritual health, you’re actually being very un-loving when you ignore the fact that someone is self-destructing spiritually or otherwise.
So it seems the church confronted this man about his behavior. Presumably this man repented and turned from his sinful behavior so now Paul says it’s time to restore him back into the church community. This always has to be end goal of any type of rebuke—restoration. We can’t rebuke out of bitterness or ill-will. That’s not godly rebuke. Loving rebuke ALWAYS seeks restoration.
God does this to me all the time. God will use circumstances or sometimes more directly like in a sermon about a sin that I’m committing. And when it happens it hurts my heart! But He always invites me to pray for repentance and to ask Him to help me to change. He convicts me but he always restores me. That’s the kind of God who loves us.
Have you ever been rebuked by God? Have you ever felt His loving restoration?
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